Next stop for 2016 Democrats: Harry Reid's Nevada

Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Martin O'Malley have made or will make appearances. | AP Photos

For his part, O’Malley’s political action committee donated $2,500 to the Flores campaign — on top of the $5,000 his PAC gave to the Clark County Democrats. On Tuesday, O’Malley joined Flores at a fundraising happy hour at the trendy Washington bar Local 16 for a group encouraging people under the age of 40 to get involved in politics. (Flores is 34; the 51-year-old O’Malley was first elected to the Baltimore City Council at the age of 28.) More O’Malley events in the fall to help the Nevada state party and local candidates are expected, according to an aide to the governor.

Reid has enlisted other high-profile Democrats to raise money for his party.

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At Reid’s request, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker headlined a July fundraiser for the Nevada Democratic Party at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas with donors ponying up to $2,500 to rub elbows with the freshman Democrat. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke at the party’s state convention in June at the Circus Circus hotel in Reno. Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also heads the Democratic National Committee, headlined money events last week for Flores and Erin Bilbray — a Democrat running for the House who also was the beneficiary of a Biden fundraiser last week.

And at Reid’s urging, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, is attending a Nevada Democratic women’s event in September.

“He’s always been very aggressive,” Clyburn said of the majority leader’s fundraising push. “I’ve been out there many times with Harry.”

The fact that big-name Democrats are going all-out in Nevada is rather surprising, given that the hot-button races this year are mostly down-ballot, including the battle for the state Senate where Democrats maintain a one-seat advantage. Sandoval is expected to skate to reelection after Reid and the state Democrats failed to recruit a top-tier candidate against him, taking the governor’s race off the table.

“Keep bringing them,” Heller said, referring to the Democratic heavy hitters coming to his state. “With where their party is coming from right now, with the position they have probably on the most important issues of the time — jobs, the economy, health care, border security — keep bringing them because these are the wrong people to bring into Nevada because [voters] are not happy with any of them.”

This year, two other races could also have an impact on Reid’s reelection in 2016, including the battle for secretary of state and attorney general.

If he’s engaged in yet another tight reelection battle, a Democratic Nevada secretary of state — who enforces the state’s election laws — could certainly help Reid, while a conservative attorney general could possibly make life difficult for him. On top of that, Reid has an unusual tie to the attorney general race: The current Democratic Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller is facing Republican Adam Laxalt, grandson of former Sen. Paul Laxalt, who narrowly defeated Reid in a contentious 1974 Senate race. (Reid later won the seat of a retiring Laxalt in 1986.)

All that means Reid needs to have a stocked war chest for his state party — something that Clinton is expected to help build on, even though Reid privately urged Barack Obama to challenge her in the heated 2008 presidential primary.

Over the past decade, Reid and his top political aides have built a voter identification and turnout operation that has helped him stay in power — including in 2010 despite his rock-bottom approval ratings and the tea party wave — and helped deliver Obama the state in his two presidential races. And it was Reid’s move to push Nevada up in the presidential calendar in 2008 that helped bolster Democrats’ voter registration advantage that they still enjoy today.

Just as he’s doing in the lieutenant governor’s race this year, Reid has often moved to rub out prospective opponents to his own seat, as he did in 2008 when his machine knocked off Joe Heck in a state Senate race. Heck, now a two-term congressman, is facing Bilbray in a competitive race for the 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses the southern part of the state.

“Harry Reid is always looking ahead to his next election,” said Jon Ralston, a veteran Nevada political writer. “He doesn’t leave anything to chance.”